2023 Turkish general election

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 185 Turkish political advertisers during the 2023 Turkish general election to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (May 4th - May 10th 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (Apr 11th - May 10th 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

Apr 11th - May 10th 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend ₺16,969,082 and ran 3423 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

AKP

31


1. AK Parti (₺3,294,913)
2. AK Parti İstanbul (₺3,179,696)
3. Murat Kurum (₺402,501)

899

₺8,349,127

CHP

42


1. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (₺1,810,605)
2. Ekrem İmamoğlu (₺1,431,589)
3. CHP Ankara İl Başkanlığı (₺107,695)

1,007

₺3,698,449

MHP

30


1. Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (MHP) (₺1,589,587)
2. Levent Uysal (₺531,757)
3. Bahadır Bumin Özarslan (₺112,316)

926

₺2,805,487

YSP

3


1. Yeşil Sol Parti (₺951,910)
2. Yeşil Sol Batman (₺9,279)
3. Yeşil Sol Parti Hatay (₺100)

84

₺961,289

İYİ

7


1. NA (₺322,266)
2. Ahmet Katar (₺182,777)
3. Bahadır Erdem (₺79,089)

418

₺861,529

DEVA

8


1. Deva Partisi (₺225,948)
2. DEVA Partisi Sivas İl Teşkilatı (₺63,180)
3. Deva Partisi Trabzon İl Başkanlığı (₺1,932)

89

₺293,201

May 4th - May 10th 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend ₺6,707,143 and ran 1679 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

AKP

27


1. AK Parti İstanbul (₺1,233,976)
2. AK Parti (₺902,684)
3. Murat Kurum (₺313,883)

364

₺3,045,948

MHP

24


1. Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (MHP) (₺1,008,759)
2. Levent Uysal (₺145,733)
3. Yudum Kaşıkçı (₺71,897)

529

₺1,484,303

CHP

29


1. Ekrem İmamoğlu (₺677,609)
2. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (₺464,235)
3. Ahmet Akın (₺57,323)

529

₺1,388,316

YSP

3


1. Yeşil Sol Parti (₺465,477)
2. Yeşil Sol Batman (₺9,199)
3. Yeşil Sol Parti Hatay (₺100)

65

₺474,776

İYİ

7


1. Ahmet Katar (₺75,034)
2. Lutfullah Kayalar (₺47,123)
3. Bahadır Erdem (₺29,854)

143

₺201,940

DEVA

3


1. Deva Partisi (₺70,350)
2. DEVA Partisi Sivas İl Teşkilatı (₺41,410)
3. Deva Partisi Trabzon İl Başkanlığı (₺100)

49

₺111,860

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

Apr 11th - May 10th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Overall

By Party

May 4th - May 10th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Overall

By Party

Top Targeted Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party (ranked by amount of Turkish Lira spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

Apr 11th - May 10th 2023 (Last 30 days)

May 4th - May 10th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”. In each row on the right hand side, you can see how much in total was spend on that specific target audience.

Apr 11th - May 10th 2023 (Last 30 days)

May 4th - May 10th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Geo Targeting

Apr 11th - May 10th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Provinces

Provinces (Maps)

AKP

MHP

CHP

Cities

Geo Exclusion

Apr 11th - May 10th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Provinces

Provinces (Maps)

AKP

MHP

CHP

Cities

Age Targeting

Apr 11th - May 10th 2023 (Last 30 days)

May 4th - May 10th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

Apr 11th - May 10th 2023 (Last 30 days)

May 4th - May 10th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Education Targeting

Apr 11th - May 10th 2023 (Last 30 days)

May 4th - May 10th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

Apr 11th - May 10th 2023 (Last 30 days)